This invention relates to a propellant igniter magazine for a wedge-type breechblock. The magazine has an endless guide channel in which the propellant igniter cartridges are accommodated in a side-by-side arranged series and are stepwise advanced in the channel parallel to one another by a star-wheel. The latter, in turn, is incrementally advanced by a ratchet rotated by means of a stationary cam track as the breechblock is opened. Each firing of a propellant igniter is counted by a counting mechanism.
German Offenlegungsschrift 32 33 749.3 (published unexamined application), a counterpart to U.S. Pat. No. 4,558,626, discloses a propellant charge igniter magazine (primer cartridge magazine) for a wedge-type breechblock. That primer magazine has a straight magazine shaft for receiving the propellant charge casings. Owing to its straight, single row, shaft feed path, the magazine can only carry a limited number of casings (rounds), so that, for example, after just ten firings the spent magazine must be exchanged for a full one. Additional disadvantages of the magazine include that, for example, each primer round has to be displaced from the magazine into a chamber in the breech-block in order to be ignited, while at the same time for completion of the ignition step the magazine has to be moved transversely. Still further, the device requires that the casing of spent primer rounds have to be removed from the chamber so that a new primer round can be received.
There has already been a step in the direction to overcome the drawbacks described above. A primer charge igniter magazine is disclosed in International Defence Review, No. 5, 1989, page 655. The article discloses an advantageous construction for a magazine by the provision of an endless channel by which the capacity for storing primer rounds is increased. The rounds are advanced through the endless channel by use of a star-shaped control wheel. However, that article fails to disclose where the actual ignition of the further movable primer rounds should take place, nor does it disclose how the stepwise advancement should be carried out, nor how the coupling of various components be achieved, nor how the space-demanding cartridge indicator on the exterior of the magazine should be converted into a space-saving cartridge count indicator within the magazine itself.